You're only partially correct. I did grow up using Windows, but I also dual-booted Ubuntu on every machine that I could. I also used a Macbook exclusively for a few years, and MacOS was way closer to Linux than Windows was back then.

Nowadays, I also use a mix of Powershell and Ubuntu via WSL, depending on what I need. Linux commands usually do less than what I'd like it to, but they work like simple building blocks. Powershell does exactly what I want, but some of these commands are way too freaking long.

However, I'd argue that path variables aren't for power users. Sure, it's not for your grandmother, but a decent chunk of people who wanted to run a Minecraft server for their friends probably looked into path variables, and almost all of them looked at firewall settings and port forwarding. Those people will be confused and scared of GUIs and editing txt or bat files. Without a friend walking them through the process, opening a terminal is infinitely more intimidating. Even if someone is fine with learning terminal commands, there aren't nearly enough checks with Linux commands when doing something potentially destructive compared to Windows. With Windows, you usually get some minor annoyance with hard to find solutions at worst. With Linux, assuming no backups, you'll end up needing to clean install if you're trying to learn how to do something.

In all fairness, I haven't used Linux GUIs often in about 4 years. The most recent time I used one at all was about a year ago when I was trying to set up a remote desktop solution, but didn't know what a desktop manager was, what a display server was etc. I only really use Linux from a terminal nowadays.

EDIT: To add to the PATH thing, you severely overestimate the number of programmers who are also power users. It is crazy how many CS majors don't know how to fix basic issues.